Bhubaneswar/Phulbani: The Odisha government on Tuesday stepped up multi-agency search and rescue (SAR) operations by engaging ground-penetrating radar (GPR) and other specialised equipment at a hilltop village on the Ganjam-Kandhamal border, where 10 people went missing after a massive landslide triggered by rain hit the area during Cyclone Arnab last week.
Odisha’s Disaster Management minister Suresh Pujari said that the SAR operation at the Gidipabali village landslide site under Bhanjanagar block of Ganjam district entered its fourth day on Tuesday.
The minister said that 157 personnel from the NDRF, ODRAF, Railways and Fire Services are engaged in the SAR operation, along with 25 local volunteers. Apart from these, daily labourers are also engaged in the operation, he said, adding that all modern technology is being used to trace the 10 missing people.
During the four days of the SAR operation, the bodies of two persons were recovered on Sunday from among the 12 people who went missing in the landslide on Thursday night, said Director General of Fire Services, S Sarangi.
“We are facing difficulty in removing huge boulders that rolled down the hills and fell on houses, beneath which some bodies are suspected to be buried,” he said.
Sarangi said that the teams are now using explosives to blast the huge boulders before removing the debris from the damaged houses.
The bodies recovered so far have been identified as those of Salman Pradhan (29) and Rabi Mallick (52) of Gidipabali village.